


tell me, just what will I do (I just can't stop loving you)

by vindice



Category: One Piece
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-31 21:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20801705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vindice/pseuds/vindice
Summary: “And I left.”“And you left.”





	tell me, just what will I do (I just can't stop loving you)

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s coping mechanisms involve writing angsty semi-plotless things.
> 
> Will fix errors later. I’m going to sleep now.

Hanging up the phone with a sigh, Thatch scrubs his face to rid himself of the stupor.

“What is it?” Izou frowns from the couch, where they’ve been watching a movie after finishing dinner.

He takes the keys from the table by the front door and puts on his coat, before scratching the back of his head feeling a little dumbfounded.

“Marco wants us to bail them out.”

It sounds just as unbelievable out of his own mouth as hearing it over the phone was. It’s an out-of-body experience.

Izou blinks owlishly. “Them?” He says, but doesn’t really linger over the fact that _Marco is in jail,_ _what the fuck. _Taking it in stride like the amazing little thing he is, his fiancé raises an eyebrow, “Who else?”

Now that, _ that _ is familiar ground. Even with this unexpected surprise, Thatch can’t hold back his happy grin.

“Get this,” he says, licking his lower lip just for the dramatics, “_Ace and him_.”

Izou’s eyebrows raise and his eyes widen the slightest bit in surprise. Thatch wouldn’t blame him if his mouth fell open in a small circle right now, though it obviously won’t happen, simply because _ he’s Izou. _

At least not yet, not when it’s only an interaction, a coincidence for all they know.

Thatch himself is somewhat vibrating anyway, fingertips buzzing with energy. He nods, “I know.”

An interaction it may be, but it’s damn good progress compared to these past few months. It’s been _almost_ _a year_ and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t rejoice in the possibility.

Hell, they might be jinxing themselves but he hopes for all they love that it isn’t the case.

Sea knows _they _deserve it.

Izou’s gaze sparkles suddenly, his pretty dark eyes shining under the dim light of the TV with unmistakable mischief.

“Oh, I know that look,” Thatch says warily, but he can’t help the thrill of excitement going down his spine. “What are you planning?”

“Me? Nothing,” Izou averts his eyes almost bashfully, brushing nonexistent dust off his yukata. He’s so full of shit and Thatch can’t hold back his dopey smile. Good lord, he adores this man. “I was just thinking we could maybe, you know, finish what we were doing earlier in the kitchen.”

Thatch’s smile turns into a wide grin, immediately catching up on what’s going through the mind of his other half. 

“We’re letting them there till they talk, isn’t it? You said we weren’t gonna meddle.”

Izou stands. “And we’re not. Rakuyo just happened to pay us a visit right before we went to get them. Marco wouldn’t want any more people than necessary knowing, right? I bet the only reason he called you was because he would have owed _ me _ a favour if he had called me instead. What are your teasing rights compared to that.”

“You’re _ wicked_,” Thatch says delighted, in the same tone he uses to say he loves him. He drops the keys back into their place and takes off his coat. “Such wicked creature.”

His fiancé bats his lashes and gives him a look that means _ why, thank you. _

“I recall you wanted to use the ropes tonight?” Izou says as he nears him. He closes the distance and laces his hands behind Thatch’s neck, his sultry voice so sweet against the shell of his ear. 

Were Thatch a weaker man and he’d feel his knees go feeble at the feeling of that beautiful smile pressed against his skin. 

Instead he grins, and says, “I knew I wanted to marry you for a reason.”

* * *

“Do you realize how long it's been since we've spent this much time in the same room, let alone together?” Marco asks with a slight smile, “Outside our parents’ get-togethers, I mean.”

“I know,” Ace chortles, retrieving the paper they have been playing mini basketball with from the other side of the room and looking up at him.

They’re sitting side by side, only a couple of feet apart with their backs towards the hall, leaning against the bars and smiling tentatively, looking at each other like they haven’t in a long, long time.

The irony isn’t lost to either of them, no doubt having the exact same thought. How proud their collective families would be if they saw them willingly talking to each other again, without any of them having to mediate. Jozu would cry.

There is a long pause in which they’re lost in each other's eyes, grins upon their faces dimming into something soft, something faint. 

“What?” Marco asks quietly, a little wary at the hesitance almost hidden behind Ace’s eyes. He ignores the pang it brings to his chest when he doesn’t find the same strength he’s seen before in their usually fiery light.

Ace opens and closes his mouth, looking for words. He licks his lips and bites the upper one shyly, a habit he’s always had when he’s considering something carefully, thinking it over. Marco can’t help but follow the movement, staring for a second.

“Do you ever wonder what happened to us? Think about the day we broke up?”

Marco’s eyes soften, loosely clenching his hands into fists. 

“Everyday,” he answers without faltering, “Every single day I run through that conversation, word for word.”

“I do too,” Ace says quietly, looking like he wants to avert his eyes but doesn’t.

“You said, ‘Maybe we're better off alone.’” Marco’s smile is more of a grimace; a little bitter, a little weary.

Ace has a small smile, a fragile thing on the edge of shattering, his eyes defeated. Marco hates he’s the reason behind it. “And you said, ‘Oi, you're the one who's leaving.’”

He breathes out, feeling his chest hurt. There’s a lump in his throat but he presses through it.

“And you said, ‘You’re the one who isn’t stopping me.’”

“And I left.” Ace says faintly.

“And you left.” Marco agrees, just as quiet.

“I wish I hadn't…” it doesn’t matter it’s being whispered, Marco hears it anyway with how close they are.

“The biggest regret of my life is that I didn't stop you.” Marco tells him earnestly, moving closer, until they’re touching from shoulder to hip to thigh to shoe.

“Yeah,” Ace gives a quivering laugh averting his gaze, eyes shining suspiciously. “What was up with that?”

“I just panicked,” Marco admits. He feels angry, but most of all lost, adrift, mind reliving that day all over again. “You said you wanted some time. That I could do better. I thought you were just trying to make me feel better for breaking up. You were in high school, for fuck’s sake. _ You _ could do so much better,” Marco’s smile feels a little too self-deprecating even to him, “and yet you were with me. Someone older, boring. Plain.”

Ace turns his head sharply, watery eyes glaring at him. He’s glowering, and yet all it does is make Marco’s heart rejoice at the blazing heat in them, that dimmed light suddenly lit. He takes his flame’s hand into his own before Ace can say anything, can protest against his words.

“I know, _ caro mio_,” Marco soothes, feeling bold. He _ shouldn’t, _ he knows he shouldn’t, but he’s only human, and like all, a flawed being who’s filled with tentative hope warming his insides. “I just lost faith that I could sustain that kind of happiness.”

That’s why he let him go.

“It was like we were both playing chicken, and then we…” Ace sniffs, putting into words what he couldn’t, “We both swerved.” 

“What we should have done is crashed right into each other,” Marco quotes and hesitates for just a second before cradling his world in his palm, gently cupping Ace’s cheek with his free hand and catching his attention.

“At the speed of light.” Ace smiles timidly, leaning into his touch. He looks down at their linked hands, before he looks up at him again, eyes soft.

There’s a pause in which they take into each other, Marco drinking in Ace’s everything like a man in the middle of the desert finally coming across an oasis after so long. His eyes roam freely over the face he hasn't seen this close in months, his flushed cheeks red from the earlier effort of holding back tears, scattered freckles dusting his skin like constellations on the sand. 

Marco’s calloused palms are a contrast against Ace’s soft skin, and they both lean forward until their foreheads are touching, closing their eyes for a moment. 

“Do you still love me?” Ace asks in a small voice.

Marco smiles gently, the kind of smile he only ever allowed Ace to see. Soft around the edges, vulnerable and genuine. Specially reserved just for him. 

“There’s never been a time where I didn’t.”

They meet halfway, half-lidded eyes falling shut when their mouths touch.

The kiss is slow at first: a chaste, reverent press of lips, both of them savoring in that one contact the heartache they’ve been through while apart. Ace squeezes his hand before letting go, but not for long. He cradles Marco’s cheek, thumb caressing his jaw while his other hand travels from cheek to nape and Marco’s skin tingles and _ burns _ and he doesn’t want it to stop. His fingers tangle in his hair at last, gives a gentle tug, and the noise Marco makes is a mix between a contented sigh and something like a coo. Ace tugs a little harder then, and Marco groans, his blood sings. 

_ He’s kissing Ace. _

After so long, and he’s missed this, missed him like one misses the moon when they can’t see it, like they miss the warmth of coming home. It makes his head spin, whether it be for the lack of oxygen or not, Marco just wants to fuse them together like the flames always dancing in the bonfires they sat in front of when they were young and never let him go. 

Not again, not now, not ever.

“You're out of here, brats,” a voice says behind them making them jolt, almost knocking into each other and painfully bumping their noses.

They ease their grip from where they’re clutching almost painfully to each other and break apart awkwardly, Marco clearing his throat and looking over his shoulder to find Officer Smoker standing there with a grumpy look that does nothing to hide the amusement shining in his eyes.

“Looks like they finally deigned to come,” Marco mutters under his breath instead of acknowledging Smoker’s jest and pointing out they’re about the same age, helping Ace to his feet. 

Ace, who has gone beet red and looks anywhere but Marco, stuttering a _ thank-you _ but never letting go of him.

He has to bite back a grin because he knows it’s going to be more of a dopey smile than what he intended.

Smoker opens the gate and tells them to wait there before leaving them to themselves. Ace and Marco look at each other for a moment, then look away with big smiles as they hold hands.

* * *

Thatch gasps into Izou's mouth, elbows holding up his body so he doesn’t slip and crushes him, only for Izou to pull him to his chest in a messy and sweaty hug anyway. Rearranging themselves until their limbs find a more comfortable position, they lace their fingers together and Thatch starts playing lazily with his fiancé’s ring.

“They're either gonna thank us, or we’re gonna have to deal with another case of depression when we see them tomorrow,” Thatch snorts, though he can’t help the hint of worry seeping in his tone.

Izou’s tired laugh rumbles in his ear where his head lays over his chest, steady heartbeat making his own skip a beat. He kisses the milky skin underneath his lips. Izou moves his hand until slim fingers thread through his hair, and Thatch lets himself relax.

“They’ll be fine,” his heartmate soothes, and even through his uncertainty, Thatch believes him.

* * *

“Alright, this is what we are going to do,” the judge — Bell-mère, Marco’s former roommate in college, and isn’t this a small world? — announces. “I'm releasing both of you.”  
  
“Finally.” Ace says under his breath. Marco lightly elbows him on the side.

“Really?” Marco asks. 

“Yes, but you’ll have to pay your fines,” she tells them patiently. 

Ace’s huff may look like annoyance, but Marco knows he’s holding back a laugh. Marco is collected enough to answer before he can, “Yes, we will pay what hasn’t been paid.”

The fines that Ace’s little brother got while driving Ace’s car. The fines he didn’t pay and didn’t tell Ace about. The fines he most likely forgot the next day.

He’ll have to thank Luffy next time they meet; which will be probably tomorrow in the next gathering their parents have planned. 

He might have to thank his brothers, too. Marco is under no illusion Thatch couldn’t make it on time. And given the fact he was with Izou when he called him, Marco knows who’s the mastermind behind this plan.

“I'm sure you will. Otherwise Officer Smoker here will hunt you down if you don't follow the letter of the law.” Bell-mère says, amused, “Let me notarize this stuff and then you can go and meet with your mother.”

“Thank you,” they say in unison.

* * *

Marco has an epiphany just as they’re walking through the exit after they’re given the go-ahead, and turns to look at Ace.

“Wait, did she say-”

“Ace Gol.” Rouge’s voice calls out before Marco can finish his sentence, making both of them freeze on the spot. He sees Ace literally go stiff at the sound of his mother’s stern tone from the corner of his eye, following suit when Rouge’s narrowed eyes fall onto him. “Marco Newgate.”

Marco and Ace had used their one-call’s on Thatch and Sabo respectively, to see who would get there faster. Thatch had been surprised because who would have expected it to be _ Marco _ who was calling from jail? But he had accepted nonetheless. Ace said Sabo was about to start an important meeting but that he’d send someone over as soon as possible. They had assumed it’d probably be Law, who Luffy would drag anyway if he called his little brother directly.

There’s always the chance someone overheard the conversation at Sabo’s work, or Thatch accidentally let it slip in front of anyone else.

It doesn’t matter right now, because Rouge is there, hands on her hips and head tilted in just the right angle to make them feel like the little kid and young teenager they were when they broke her window while playing baseball.

And even though Marco is slightly terrified — whoever says they aren’t scared of Rouge Portgas is a liar — and it wasn’t really their fault they were detained, Ace is holding his hand, and that’s enough to make him feel like he could take over the world.

**Author's Note:**

> (whoever gets the reference and inspo I will love them forever)
> 
> I’ll never leave these two with a completely sad ending. Just thought I’ll let you know.


End file.
